Letter: Rights of the First Nations

It’s encouraging to see the government of British Columbia attempt to resolve some of the Canadian Natives’ rights and to write them into legislation.

A very important part of that process will be to determine who will be representing the other 4.6 million British Columbians, who consistently have been excluded from all of those one-on-one and group consultations that have been conducted over the years between governments and the Natives.

They have the same statutory rights to participate in those discussions and to be consulted on an equal basis.

And how do we balance their rights against those millions of people who have entered Canada and British Columbia in good faith over the millennia, allowing them to believe we are all equal under the law?

Maintaining a massive inflow of people into Canada from virtually every country in the world, and another generation is being started about every 30 years, the dilution factor is so high there eventually could be very few people with more than that paper thin 1/16th (6.25 per cent) of Indian blood in their veins required to maintain that indigenous status.

Cultural and racial inter-marriages will continue to dilute the amount of Native blood in the veins of the North American Indians, and will inevitably lead to their extinction.